Numerous American homeowners have had problems obtaining ‘loan modifications’, a national programme with some major flaws.

More than three million people are eligible and more than one million might be currently involved in the loan modification process, ProPublica’s Mike Webb said, explaining the scale and level of interest.

“We’re doing this because more than 800 homeowners have shared their stories with us about the numerous problems they’ve had in obtaining a modification,” he said.

“We’ve shared many of their stories in our reports, but there are just too many to publish. So we’re hoping local reporters can talk to the homeowners and local banks to help your readers understand how the program works (or doesn’t work).”

Very quickly, ProPublica had 40 reporters sign up to be be paired. “It’s a continuation of our sharing approach, like the reporting recipe, and stimulus data sets,” said Webb.

Via paidContent, we see that a live conference from the New York Times building is being webcast right now (not sure for how much longer), with a stellar line-up: Brian Stelter, media reporter & Media Decoder blogger, the New York Times (moderator) with Aron Pilhofer, editor, interactive news technology, the New York Times; Andy Carvin, senior social media strategist, National Public Radio; Amanda Michel, editor, distributed reporting, ProPublica; Jay Rosen, professor, New York University; and Joaquin Alvarado, senior VP, digital innovation, American Public Media.